pop culture: The Latest Architecture and News

Kanye West turning a Tadao Ando Malibu beach house into a ruin, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi purchasing and re-selling the 1955 Richard Neutra-designed Brown-Sidney House, and fashion designer Marc Jacobs renovating a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house near New York City are just a few examples of pop stars' affair with historically significant architecture. Celebrities, like soccer players, form an elite group characterized by a high concentration of wealth and significant social status. They are not only buyers of high-end architecture as authored property and cultural capital, but also agents of its preservation and promotion. This year, we are seeing new examples of this agency at work from a more abstract yet also more popular perspective: from the stage design for Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance to a newly designed stadium for Shakira by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, architecture is used as a vehicle for promoting Latin American identity.

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In her 1959 debut by Mattel, Barbie became a doll that transformed the toy industry and has been a popular culture icon ever since. 3 years later, the first accompanying Barbie Dollhouse was created, a home for Barbie representing her domestic, habitual, and day-to-day life. Over the past 60 years, Barbie Dreamhouses have changed and evolved, each iteration adopting the architectural and design fads of the eras in which they were produced. In fact, each dollhouse is an artifact of the unique blend of history, politics, popular culture, trends, and design styles that define architecture as we know it.

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In recent years, there’s been a significant amount of clamor around the habits and impacts of the millennial generation. Headlines often read “Millennials Responsible for the Decline of Cereal”, “Millenials Are Why We No Longer Use Napkins”, and “Are Millennials Killing the Housing Market?” After being burdened with the blame of the death of almost anything, the millennial workforce has now moved away from the spotlight to make room for the next generation, “Gen Z”, which many believe are going to make significant societal disruptions- especially in the architectural and design workforce.

Detailed descriptions of the winning Bee Breeders' Tokyo Pop Lab proposals have been released. The competition brief called for a new program for studying and producing pop culture media in Tokyo. Drawing from a wide range of international pop culture history, entrants were encouraged to investigate the migration and evolution of pop culture across the world over time, and examine the relationship of culture and architecture.

In challenging established typologies of pop culture, proposals exhibited a wide range of ideologies. Successful submissions were chosen for their nuanced depictions of pop culture, clear representation, and coherent agendas for the new laboratory's program.

Take a look at the winners of the Tokyo Pop Lab competition after the break.

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